Turns out, the US could be paying Mexico to build Trump’s wall

It appears that the GOP has adopted Donald Trump’s megawall plan as part of its 2016 party platform. Now the Mexican government has reiterated that it isn’t not paying for any wall. But if a Trump administration builds a wall anyway, it may be a Mexican company that most benefits.

The Financial Times spots a Bernstein analyst report looking at which companies would financial gain from a potential new 1000-mile, 40-foot-high wall on the US-Mexico border:

The project would be good news for cement producers, with a 40ft wall adding more than 1 per cent to cement demand in both 2018 and 2019, “a significant increase in a market growing at 4-5% p.a”. And that cement can’t travel far. Moving heavy building materials more than 200 miles is uneconomical, leaving Mexican building company Cemex the best-placed to benefit, as it has numerous facilities throughout the border region. The increased demand – Bernstein estimates more than $700m-worth of concrete and $240m-worth of cement would be required – would be a welcome boost for Cemex, which is looking to continue its recovery after reporting its first quarterly profit in seven years.

This article was cross-posted from https://www.aei.org/publication/us-could-pay-mexico-build-trumps-wall/ with permission. Article was original posted July 15, 2016 by James Pethokoukis